Demon Project: Type II Demons

Original post here
Type I demons here

Yay, we finally got type I filled out.

As a reminder, here's how it works: I'll post the statistics for each type of demon in turn, then we'll generate 13 names and descriptions or variant demons that use the same stats-- One from the standard D&D presentation (the specific fluff descriptions I'm using are from AD&D 2e, but the stats are from Labyrinth Lord), six original ones from me, and six more original ones from you readers. Little adjustments, particularly in terms of its special abilities, are okay, but try to keep it compatible. If you can provide an image, so much the better, but just a name and description is all I ask.

Demon, Type II
No. Enc.: 1d3 (1d6)
Alignment: Chaotic (evil)
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: -2
Hit Dice: 9
Attacks: 3 (2 claws, bite)
Damage: 1d3/1d3/4d4
Save: F9
Morale: 10
Hoard Class: XIV
XP: 3,100

Type II demons are susceptible to ordinary weapons. Type II demons have the following spell-like abilities, usable at will: darkness 10' radius, detect invisibility, fear (as wand of fear), levitate, and telekinesis (300 lbs.). In addition, a type II Demon may gate (25% probability of success) another type II demon.

Some type II demons can emit a choking stench.

1. Hezrou: Hezrou look like large, roughly humanoid toads with arms in place of forelegs. They stand upright or on all four limbs by turns. They have rows of blunt, powerful teeth; spines run the length of their back.
2. Khaaz: Khaaz have a shrieking mandrill's head, a rattlesnake's tail, and a hulking turtle-like body. They are special servants of Demogorgon.
3. Shopheeei: Shopheeei have fearsome pincers and huge mandibles like a stag beetle-- the only protrusions visible from a cloud of magical darkness that cannot be dispelled. Some say there is nothing but claws and mouthparts.
4. Burakks: Burakks are polar-bearlike, with a tiger's stripes and long tail and great saber-teeth. Their bulging eyes are completely silver, with no visible pupil. When bugbears congregate in groups larger than a family, it is to summon and worship a Burakk.
5. Isenvorgh: Isenvorgh look like huge werewolves made of molten metal. In battle they prefer to wrestle, using their liquid bodies to drown their opponents.
6. Snarri: Snarri look like diseased ogres walking stooped over like an ape. In place of feet and hands, they have great hooves, and their teeth look like iron bear traps. They often sport mechanical implants with unpredictable effects.
7. Lazzes: Lazzes are bloated snails, with two rhino heads and one alligator head. The rhino heads are naturally peaceful and hate violence, but have no control over their body or independence, so they weep constantly.
8. Ghologtru: Look like skinless anthropomorphic hyenas (or gnolls) with an ever-rolling third eye in the middle of their forehead like polished marble. (Credit to Trey)
9. Ithlixi: appear like a snarl of hair within which drooling, needle-toothed maws can occasional be seen opening and closing atop four scabrous chicken legs. They constantly emit gurgling obscenities in myriad of human tongues. (Credit to Trey)
10. Wasmenti - vaguely humaniform, appear to be incredibly worn statues formed from jade and rusted copper. (Think Venus of Willendorf stylization, but thin and androgynous and green). Hover enigmatically. The "claw/claw/bite" is actually portions of the copper flaking off and being fired at close range into its foes. (Credit to Allandarios)
11.  Phoaa - these demons appear always as utterly mundane little girls, dressed and accoutered as appropriate for where they are found, but most often in simple peasant garb. They are utterly unremarkable at first glance, but can be discovered by two different tell-tales: the first is that they have no navels, not even a trace of one; the second is that they can not eat any normal food, and can only subsist upon the blood of intelligent humans and demi-humans. (Credit to Jason Packer)
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Demon Project: Type I demons

Original post here.

And so, without further ado, the first phase of the Demon Crowdsource Project. As a reminder, here's how it works: I'll post the statistics for each type of demon in turn, then we'll generate 13 names and descriptions or variant demons that use the same stats-- One from the standard D&D presentation (the specific fluff descriptions I'm using are from AD&D 2e, but the stats are from Labyrinth Lord), six original ones from me, and six more original ones from you readers. Little adjustments, particularly in terms of its special abilities, are okay, but try to keep it compatible. If you can provide an image, so much the better, but just a name and description is all I ask.

Demon, Type I
No. Enc.: 1d3 (1d6)
Alignment: Chaotic (evil)
Movement: 120' (40')
Fly: 180' (60')
Armor Class: 0
Hit Dice: 8
Attacks: 5 (2 claws, 2 rear claws, beak)
Damage: 1d4/1d4/1d8/1d8/1d6
Save: F8
Morale: 11
Hoard Class: XXI

XP: 2,060
These demons [...] are susceptible to damage from ordinary weapons. In combat they may attack with all five attacks if airborne, or 2 claws and a bite if on the ground. Type I Demons have the following spell-like abilities usable at will: darkness 10ft. radius, detect invisibility, and telekinesis (200lbs.). In addition, a Type I demon may gate (10% probability of success) a Type I demon.
(Statistics cribbed from Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion)

Some Type I demons have the ability to shed spores, or to join together and unleash a deadly wave of energy.

1. Vrock: Vrocks look like a cross between a large human and a vulture, with strong, sinewy limbs covered with fine gray feathers; long necks and vulture heads; and wicked claws and beak.
2. Baalzibi: Baalzibis are horrible fly-creatures, covered in sticky red skin. Their wings drone constantly even when they are on the ground. Their front four limbs end in scorpions' claws, and ovipositors along their back constantly birth foul maggots.
3. Zhaddak: Zhaddaks are elongated, tusked humanoids whose arms bifurcate at the elbow: the upper forearms end in seven-fingered hands, while the lower ones are like bat wings. Their feet are hard, shiny hooves like those of a young deer, and sharp enough to render their kicks deadly.
4. Ssan: Ssans are like fierce, stooped chimpanzees, with the heads and iron scales of gorgons on their chest and belly. They have twin elephant trunks, and the hair on their back constantly twitches and waves, catching the air and allowing it to fly
5. Talsor: Talsori are radially symmetrical, like a starfish: each of its five limbs is a serpent with a wolf's head and an owl's wing. When it walks, it alternates which limb is the head, though it has two least favorites that are the feet 80% of the time. These two resent the other three heads.
6. Guz: Guzim look like angelic men at first blush, but have teeth in place of fingernails and wasp's stingers in place of teeth. Their skin is a sickly greenish-pink, and they wear iron boots.
7. Krorvarius: Krorvarii are like floating, tentacle-less octopi, but their heads are inflated with lightweight gases. Their sharp beaks contain four tongues of molten iron.
8. Grue - Tall humanoid creatures with ochre-colored skin covered in rosy, undulating polyps. Their faces have no features except for two large, pink eyes without lids or pupils. Each eye is rimmed with a black crust. 
9. A wide mouth filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth bisects their swollen bellies. 
10. Their arms and legs are long tentacle-like protuberances tapering into pulpy cauliflower-like extremities. These are laced with a gelatinous slime that allows the Grue to climb walls and hang from ceilings.
11. (credit to Ben Djarum)
12. K'crov - these demons look, just like a vrock, like a gruesome mix of vulture and man, but reversed. They possess birdlike claws on their arms, clawed human feet and a human head filled with sharp teeth. Their wings look like membranes from human skins. Their bodies are featherless, and covered in coarse stubble like hair, but for the shoulders. (Reverse the damage of claws and hindclaws and diminish the damage of the mouth to 1d4) (credit to rorschachhamster)
13. Montelupich: Montelupich are demons with ivory-white, feminine bodies that might be considered beautiful were it not for their grotesquely thin and elongated limbs. In place of arms, they have black wings like those of ravens, each feather a razor-sharp slice of obsidian. Their feet are the hands of night hags, crudely stitched on. They attack in crowds, lifting people far into the sky before dropping them to their death. (credit to my brother)
14. The Claunge Herebanthu: Appear as enormous brazen locusts with the heads of gnashing lunatics, spluttering streams of delirious invective and dancing in furious pain.They desire to gnaw through the fabric of the multiverse to the abysms of original chaos where all may dance beyond time and space. They are winged and bladed and frantic. (credit to Tom Fitzgerald)
15. Khal'aght: Appears as a distorted, headless woman with gray or black bird wings for arms, talons for feet, a singe large eye at the navel, and a black beak at the crotch. Tends to lure victims by mimicking the cries of distressed women and child (usually the cries of past victims). (credit to Malcadon at OD&D Discussion Boards)
16. Vul'ku: Appears with a roughly humanoid torso, with a long-necked vulture heads, a scorpion tail with stinger, and long thin wing-like limbs ending in talons. The limbs bend backwards at the shoulders or hip, then bend forwards an the elbows or knees, and between the base of the limbs and the wrists or ankles are a set of fan-like patagium wings. It avoids frontal assaults, in favor or rear attacks form above. As it moves awkwardly on the ground, they always climb walls and ceilings, or fly around. (credit to Malcadon at OD&D Discussion Boards)

In which a thought experiment about demons commences

If you look at the 1e monster manual, you may notice something interesting about the Type I-VI demons: the names applied to them (Vrock, Hezrou, Glabrezu, Nalfeshnee, Marilith, and Balor) were meant (explicitly in the type IV and above, and implicitly in the types I-III) as individual names, but later on the names on the list were applied to each demon type as a whole.

Which is where I come in. If a Vrock is a spiky vulture man demon, what other sorts of Type I demons could there be? I'm going to take the Gorgonmilk approach over the next few weeks: together we'll describe 13 demons of each type. One from Gary, a few from me, and the rest from you, my readers. The only rules that apply are that they should reasonably be able to correspond to the abilities of the demon as featured in the Monster Manual. One or two little changes are fine, but most of the statblock should remain useful.

On overcoming my problem with demons and devils Part one: Demons (Abnormally picture-heavy for my standards)

Okay, so last night's post was kind of a haze of exhaustion, but I hope it was still clear.

Anyway, I want to relate what's happened to me this afternoon. I was looking through the "more like this" page for this picture:

When I stumbled upon a glabrezu drawn by the same artist. And... it didn't look like a four-armed dog-crab-ape-guy, it looked like... well, a demon. So I decided to do a little experiment-- I'd look for demons and devils of a similar nature to the classic D&D ones.
And lo and behold: results!

Type I
I actually like Vrocks a lot. Something about a lanky, stooping vulture-man is Boschy enough to stand out, but seems classic enough to suit my sensibilities. In my mind they hardly need fixing at all, just a reminder that they should be less a person that is a vulture and more some kind of horrible vulture that walks like a man, so here's some that are just nice examples of awesome vulture demons:

Type II
Now Hezrou, them I don't like. D&D is littered with toad monsters, from slaads to bullywugs to froghemoths to just plain old giant frogs and toads. They need an angle. But starting from toad isn't too bad, toads are warty and gross and associated with witches sometimes. However the goal is less a toad-demon and more a demon that is sort of toadlike in execution. These three hit the spot for me:

Type III
Glabrezu are so absurdly specific in their design I thought I could never like one. But this is the pic that kicked this whole silly art show off. This doesn't look like a thrown-together mass of animal parts, it just looks like a demon to me.

I think being hulking and four armed works in general-- searching for "four armed demon" resulted in a couple other winners:

Type IV
I can't hate Nalfeshnee too much actually. I think boars work. But the standard of giving them tiny little angel wings is stupid-- I think maybe someone was trying to inject some sort of bathetic humor and failed. Still, the pig demon is a good concept. I always liked Ganon after all, and most of the pics here are of him

Type V
Actually Mariliths don't offend me so much either. I don't know that they look like demons to me but they look like they belong on a heavy metal album, which is good enough. Less convinced of the need for six arms, but I don't hate it either. They should not be as sexy as succubi, but there's no reason they can't have a sort of aggressive dominant sexuality about them-- nor is there any reason they have to be sexy.

Type VI
Balors are balrogs. And that just works, no need to reinvent the fucking wheel. Here's some nice balrogs. Downward curving horns are a must for me, on Balrogs and on black dragons alike.

Succubi
Well like I said before succubi are another one that I don't have an aesthetic problem with. Also, I'm not your fucking spank bank.
Well, okay, here's one.

 This is running a bit long so I'll put devils in their own post, up next.

On my problem with Demons and Devils

Jeeeeezis, has it been two weeks already? Sorry, guys, real life has been eating me alive. But there is some good news, I have plans to set up an LGBTQI and allied women's West Marches game! Neat, huh? But that's not what this post is about. Though if it gets off the ground I will post about it, I assure you.

So here's what this post is actually about: For a while now I haven't liked most D&D Demons or Devils and I never was able to put a finger on why. Until tonight. Tonight I realized that the ones that I like the best (Balors, Succubi, and Imps/Quasits, and to a lesser extent Malebranche/Cornugon and Abishai-- Abishai in particular, as they were illustrated in 3.5, are in my opinion particularly attractive) all have something in common. Or rather, that the ones I don't like all have something in common. Iconicness. Those three demons are all very recognizable, very easy to grok. And for me that's an important part of D&D's specialness-- it's built on images that just about anyone who's read a few fairy tales or mythology books or been to the movies in their lives understands well enough that they can follow along and work with. Even many of its monsters, I think, are easy to make sense of. A mind-flayer is a tentacle alien that eats brains. A carrion crawler is a big scavenger worm. An owlbear is exactly what the name suggests it would be. A Bulette is a land shark, literally. A rust monster is a silly looking animal that makes metal rust.

But so many of D&D's fiends feel like... well, strange hodgepodges of thrown-together animal parts with a random assortment of magical spells. If I say "devil" or "demon" your brain probably doesn't leap to "insect person with ice powers" or "four-armed dog-gorilla with lobster claws", it's probably more like one of these bastards: exaggerated, funny-colored humans with goat horns and bat wings and tails with a little arrowhead thingy on them and fangs, and perhaps cloven hooves, conjuring up fire and darkness and either here to kick some unholy ass or buy your soul for wealth, power, or wishes, but either way here to make sure somebody goes to hell; the stuff of heavy metal album covers.

The weird thing is that most of the highest ranks of D&D's demons and devils look like this. Asmodeus, Orcus, Grazz't, they all look like devils and demons. But their underlings just don't click for me.

Of course I like the occasional possessor too. D&D never really had that, as far as I know, the closest it ever got was the Shadow Demon, which isn't too awful either, but even that only sort of felt like it was the thing.

So here's how it'll be. My next several posts, I'll give you some demons I might use. I'm not saying they're original. I'm not saying they're clever. I'm definitely not saying they're gonzo, they're about as far from that as you get. But if you want them, you'll have them.